High blood pressure has long been a prime suspect as one of the causes of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
But a recent discovery has shed a new light on this issue. And it’s scarier than most doctors were led to believe.
The good news is that this discovery also reveals a way to completely reverse dementia, even after some damage is done.
But you must act fast, or it may be too late.
In a recent edition of the journal Hypertension, the American Heart Association released a statement that linked high blood pressure during middle age to dementia in senior years.
Scientists have long suspected that dementia is a condition that only starts to display symptoms once it has been developing for around 30 years.
This is primarily because our brains can adjust to gradual damage by relocating its important functions from the damaged to the undamaged bits of brain tissue.
When the destruction becomes too great, however, there is no longer enough undamaged tissue to operate brain functions, and that is when dementia kicks in.
After pulling together a large team of their researchers who all reviewed the scientific literature in their areas of specialization, the American Heart Association released a statement that claims that high blood pressure during your 40s and 50s makes it much more likely that you will suffer from dementia when you are older.
Over time, high blood Pressure compromises the brain in several ways:
1. It damages and hardens the large arteries that take oxygen-rich blood from your heart to your brain. These are situated to the sides of your throat where you can feel your pulse. Without receiving fresh blood, your brain cells die.
2. It compromises the ability of the small blood vessels inside your brain to distribute the blood properly.
3. Reduced blood flow damages the white matter that your brain needs to think, feel, and control other operations in your body.
4. Reduced blood flow may also lead to Alzheimer’s disease by ruining your brain’s ability to control the amount of beta amyloid that is present. Excess beta amyloid then forms plaques and tangles, which are the chief characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease.
It’s therefore essential not to wait. Take actions today to lower your blood pressure and prevent dementia down the road.
But the most important message from this study for me was that it confirmed what I’ve been preaching for years: that the main cause of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia is the lack of oxygen reaching your brain cells.